Apple Pay will soon launch in 16 more countries, including Bulgaria and Croatia — MacRumors — “Mobile banking service Monese has revealed that Apple Pay is also coming soon to its cardholders in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Latvia, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia… Apple Pay is also nearing launch in the Netherlands, Hungary, and Luxembourg for a total of 16 upcoming countries.”

Apple Pay is coming soon to Austria, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Greece, and Romania — MacRumors — “Mobile banking service N26 today on its Twitter account announced that Apple Pay will soon be available in Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia, one day after revealing that Apple Pay is coming soon to Austria. Likewise, ING Bank has announced that Apple Pay is coming soon to Romania… Slovakian bank Slovenská Sporiteľňa confirmed that it will start supporting Apple Pay later this year.”

We’re planning to launch estcoin — and that’s only the start — e-Residency — “We have identified not one, but three variants of estcoin that would benefit both our digital nation and those who use them. All three of these models of estcoin are viable and can be introduced (even without alarming the European Central Bank).”

PARTNER NEWS: More than 200 banks across northern Europe are now able to deploy token-based secure mobile payments services to their customers via a partnership between digital payments services provider Nets and Carta Worldwide... More

Mobile banking service Pocopay has launched in the Netherlands, Spain and its home country of Estonia to let consumers split bills, request money using email addresses or QR codes and make payments via a MasterCard contactless debit card... More

The volume of contactless payments in Europe is forecast to rise almost nine-fold to 12.2bn in 2020 compared to 2014 and account for 13% of all card payments, according to research released by RBR. The number of contactless cards issued is also expected to treble from 2014 to just short of 700m by 2020 — representing more than 40% of the total regional card base. More

Mobile network operator EMT has begun pilot testing an NFC mobile wallet in Estonia, in partnership with Danske Bank, Nordea Pank, SEB Pank and Swedbank as well as retail group Tallinna Kaubamaja... More